Sharing information

Managing how personal information is shared between healthcare
professionals, employee and employer

Often people with a mental health condition
are reluctant to tell their employer (prospective or current) about
their mental ill-health. It is therefore important to discuss
and agree what information can be shared, with whom and in what
circumstances with your patient. Personal information should
only be shared with an employer or occupational support with the
written consent of the patient.

The Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) has
now been superseded by a new Equality Act 2010 started to be
implemented in October 2010. The Act brings together nine
separate pieces of legislation into one single Act simplifying the
law and strengthening it in important ways to help tackle
discrimination and inequality. In particular, except in very
restricted circumstances or for very restricted purposes, employers
are not allowed to ask any job applicant about their health or any
disability until the job applicant has been:

offered a job either outright or on conditions, or

included in a group of successful candidates to be offered a
job when a position becomes available, where more than one post is
being recruited to (for example, if an employer is opening a new
workplace or expects to have multiple vacancies for the same
role).

This includes asking such a question as part
of the application process or during an interview. Questions
relating to previous sickness absence are regarded as questions
that relate to health or disability.

This applies to everyone, disabled or not,
with a history of mental ill-health or not.

No-one else can ask these questions on the
employer’s behalf either. So an employer cannot refer an applicant
to an occupational health practitioner or ask applicants to fill in
a questionnaire provided by an occupational health practitioner
before the offer of a job is made (or before a prospective employee
has been included in a pool of successful applicants) except in
very limited circumstances.

An employer can ask questions once they have
made a job offer or included an applicant in a group of successful
candidates. At that stage, the employer could make sure that an
applicant’s health or disability would not prevent him/her from
doing the job. But the employer must also consider whether there
are reasonable adjustments that would enable the employee to do the
job.

The Government Equalities Office and also the
Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) have produced short
guides for employers about the Equality Act 2010.

Some employees may be happier for their GP and occupational
health physician to share information with one another. It is
more likely that your patient will feel happy about their
information being shared if there is a culture in their workplace
of honest and open communication and partnership working.

Links
to resource

This review was commissioned
by the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions to look at mental
health and employment and to identify how Government could help
people with mental health conditions fulfil their employment
ambitions. Appendix 7 of the report sets out the advantages
and disadvantages of disclosing information about mental ill-health
at work.

This sheet includes
information on confidentiality and privacy. It sets out the
circumstances in which information can be shared. The
section on work includes pros and cons on disclosing personal
information to an employer to help employees decide what to tell,
when and how.